I grew up during an era where daydreaming was considered loafing or wasting time. The prevailing logic was straightforward: If you were daydreaming, you weren’t working. While reading Brian Clark’s blog on the web site “Lateral Action,” I learned there is sound scientific evidence connecting daydreaming with creativity—people who daydream more are more creative, innovative, and better problem solvers. This puts daydreaming into the respectable category of “productive activity.” According to Dr. Teresa Belton, a researcher at the University of East Anglia in England, “Daydreams involve a more relaxed style of thinking, with people more willing to contemplate ideas that seem silly or far-fetched.” This is what sets the stage for creative behavior. To illustrate, Mr. Clark tells the story of Arthur Fry, a 3M engineer and Presbyterian choir member. Mr. Fry marked songs in his choir book with little pieces of paper which routinely fell out causing him to lose his place. During a Sunday service, Mr. Fry started to daydream. What he needed was a sticky piece of paper that wouldn’t fall out of his choir book. As a result, the Post-it Note was born using a glue product that was going to be discarded by 3M because it didn’t stick well enough. The lesson here is that if you want to make your day more productive, spend part of it daydreaming.
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There’s only one way to become an outstanding success as a salesperson. It’s called repeat and referral sales. It doesn’t matter if you’re selling cars, real estate, insurance, pharmaceuticals, financial services or farm equipment. If you don’t focus your efforts on generating repeat and referral sales, you’re going nowhere as a salesperson. Furthermore, there’s only one way in which you can get your customers to provide you with continuing repeat and referral sales and that’s by turning them into long-term friends. Let me give you an example: Joe Girard was a car salesperson for Merolis Chevrolet in Detroit. For 12 straight years Joe was listed in The Guinness Book of World Records for being the world’s best new car salesperson. During his final year of selling cars, Joe sold 1,425 new Chevrolet cars and trucks! That’s 1,425 new Chevrolet cars and trucks sold by a single salesperson during one calendar year! How did Joe do it? The answer is simple. 65% of his sales were to repeat customers and the other 35% were to customers who were referred to him by his repeat customers. So, the year that Joe Girard got into The Guinness Book of World Records for selling 1,425 cars, how many cars did he actually sell? The answer is NONE! His customers sold them for him. Why? Because Joe took the time to turn each of his customers into a long-term friend. As Joe put it, “I stand in front of my product as well as behind it.” In other words, before you could buy a car from Joe, you first had to buy Joe. He wouldn’t let you buy a car from him until he turned you into a friend. Then, after you bought a car from Joe and you experienced a problem either with the car or someone at the dealership, Joe went to bat for you and personally saw to it that the problem was resolved to your satisfaction. Joe also made it a point to stay in touch with his customers after they bought a car from him; he didn’t forget about them and he made sure they they knew it. Yes, Joe truly loved his customers and they loved him back by providing him with enough repeat and referral sales to make it possible for him to sell more than 13,000 cars in 12 years. As Joe said in his book, How to Sell Anything to Anybody, “All of my customers these days are people who ask for me by name. All of them.” You too can enjoy the same level of success as Joe Girard once you stop focusing on making sales and start focusing on turning your customers into long-term friends.
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